Monday, November 11, 2013

Lance Armstrong and Travis Tygart Communicate Through the Media

Here is Lance Armstrong on the BBC World Service:

Travis Tygart of USADA responds indirectly in The Guardian:
Tygart said he had not read Armstrong's comments, but there was nothing personal for Usada.

"Their [Armstrong and his lawyers] goal was to make it personal against us, you know, so that we would get the pressure and I would get the death threats and my family would get the death threats," Tygart said. "Play one out of the defence playbook is to identify a single person and then vilify them.

"And that's how you try to bully them or intimidate them or scare them away from doing the job and exposing the truth that they know our job was to expose. Look, we were very methodical, very judicial. It's a very clinical process. We went through it, treated him the same as everyone else was treated."

Tygart said he felt "compassion" for Armstrong and his family as he was really "no worse" than a lot of other riders. But "he was the one that won, obviously. He was the one that profited the most," Tygart said.

"It can't be a good situation where he's at right now," Tygart said. "That was a large part why we gave [him] the opportunity back in June 2012 to come forward. We were as disappointed as anyone back then when they rejected that and went on the attack. And we still, I think, remain open."

Armstrong has said that a truth and reconciliation commission for international cycling is crucial. It's something that Wada and the UCI's new leadership may make progress on in Johannesburg this week.

"We've been pushing for it from day one," Tygart said. "When we saw the evidence that we saw during the course of this investigation, we knew this was not just about one individual athlete. It was about a system that corrupted a sport.

"To get to the bottom of the dark culture during that time is critically important for the success of the sport going forward."
More from Tygart here with AP. And more to come in this soap opera to be sure.

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